Piano Sonata
by PhoenixSongs
Summary: 'He sits in darkness, with nothing but piano keys for his own." Edward contemplates existence to the tune of a piano melody.
1. Chapter One: Before He Finds Her

The piano is swathed in the darkness, though his eyes can see all around perfectly.

The house is not quiet - for with their hearing, and his abilty, nothing ever is.

The couples in their rooms go about nightly things, things he tries to block from his mind, as he is a boy that has no wishes to hear any of such loud fantasies and realities.

Instead this boy strolls with no real purpose to the piano, picking up the lid with fingers that hold a pearly glow in the night, and his long, pale, glacial fingers ghost across the keys, though he is more silent than the house.

Breaths that he does is not required to take ricochet through the house - though he assumes to only his ears as the ears of his family are turned to other things.

He slowly presses one finger to a key, a note resounds throughout his ears and hangs in the nightly desolation.

_It is so loud though,_ He almost let out a whine of pain as he crumples his brow and secures his hands over his ears - though the action does not benefit him, the action cannot block the thoughts, the fantasies, the images, the scents, the passion, the _love_ that is constantly surrounding this empty abundance of existence.

It's like light.

And it is _agonising._

The blinding light that they bask in happily - _how can they stand it? _- blissfully unaware while the lost boy trails behind in silence.

He pretends not to mind: the silence suits him, he insists with a small smile that he has perfected over these long years, that he prefers to be alone and always has. He lies, he says he is content with his life, happy even, upon rare occasion. But the truth - this lonely boy knows all too well, is that he has to play such pretends for their sake.

They are happy,

And he is not.

That is all there is.

But he is far too kind, too good, and polite and old fasioned to let his true emotions shine through his small smile; to show the way he really feels.

So he bottles it up, and sets up small smiles, smiles that they believe to be genuine, and locks himself away, with the farce of good natured teasing and solitary being, and at night he emerges, and he sits in darkness, with nothing but piano keys for his own.

He press another key down, trying to drown out everything but pearly white and black and _silence _and light notes that form the melody of single and eternal life.

Eventually his long fingers move enough that he can play some form of true melody - though it is one that simply echos through the house; soft and sad, drifting across only his ears and not interrupting anyone else's activities, simply reminding him that this is what there is, his family: absent together, his piano, and himself.

But he shuts the lid with a delicay that is another mask - as he wants to slam it down, and run from the house that is never silent - before there is any change, before an ending, a resolve, a respite or a differing anything.

Because the song is lost and it goes unheard, the song holds no importance, and the song will never be finished: it will always remain young, unblemished by time, eternal and unending.

And so will he.

And this he realises, as he stares at his long, pale hands; the hands that create and destroy alike,

Life and Death...

Another set of eternal companions that taunt him when he sits alone at night.


	2. Chapter Two: Before He Knows Her

A Sonata is a piece of played music, as opposed to music that is sung. The term - being vague - has evolved over the years, it is applied to most instrumental genres, but is most commonly referred to as the term for a solo piano piece, although can refer to a piano accompanied by another instrument.

Edward knows this because he knows almost everything there is to know about most subjects.

Or at least, he thinks he does.

But then he meets a girl that throws off everything he knows and he is so confused now.

He tries to hate her to begin with, because he could not understand, and because he attracted her when he didn't want to be attracted.

Then he was polite to her, the way he was taught, when he is kind and almost warm, he is surprised at how oddly real he feels when he is around her, because he finds himself enthralled by the girl that appeared from the sunny states and took the school by storm without even trying.

And then she almost dies. And the tune of his song changes key, the dank tune suddenly hitched and laboured, like a heartbeat that is struggling to continue.

She is fine; and soon the melody returns to whatever power it held before fear gripped him when he didn't think he was afraid.

After the accident he does not talk to her; fearing himself and her alike, but he still sees her, still watches her, hears her soft and feels her warmth and revels in her smiles, things are different and better and worse and Edward is so confused and he isn't used to feeling so confused.

Although a crazy part of his minds tells him it doesn't matter that he doesn't know because he might have the chance to know her better of he stopped being to foolish, selfish and scared, scared of being wrong of scared of not knowing.

And they talk again. A warning, but still; they talk.

He revels in her words, though they are filled with a fury and threat that her precious hands and good heart will never fulfil.

And he falls in love.

But he is far too young, and much too old, to understand that yet.


	3. Chapter Three: When He Finally Realises

The sonata was finally finished.

It was a goal he had never anticipated.

One he never even tried to achieve.

But as night fell and his family coupled off and spun away back into their private worlds Edward sat at his piano like he did every night.

The notes - melancholy and weighted - surround his eternal consciousness, and he shuts his eyes, sweeping the pads of his stone fingers across the keys, in the pattern he knows all too well, he is not silent, and neither is the house. The lights are all on, though he does not require their illumination.

He thinks of his family as the song takes a vaguely differing and unknown form, turning just that slightest bit lighter; still shunted in depression is the tune, as his own ice heart feels that little bit warmer than he believes he has ever felt it.

His brothers and his sisters; the light that once he almost feared, and ran from, not wanting to admit just how very bright it was, suddenly he almost understands how they can live in such valour, the light isn't just some bright spotlight to separate them from him, bring the two separates into one whole that will ultimately end in agony, it is like the sun, warm and wide, lasting and just genuinely real, and he can almost sparkle - the way his family always seem to in the presence of their loved ones, when he stands near the enriching brightness he has never known before.

He opens his eyes and he looks into the misted moonlight throughout the glass wall, and he wonders if maybe the light that surrounds them is like the moon as well.

Because the moon is just as eternal, and somehow when he looks at the sliver of misted grey he doesn't see the old rock miles away,

He looks at the moon and he sees that the sun is in there too.

There is sunshine in her.

The music halts as her scent, her face, her voice, her smile, her eyes wash through him and he shudders at her power.

He remembers her warmth.

Yes, she certainly inhibits the sunlight; as well she should for someone so good, so warm and bright.

She is his sun, whether she knows that or not.

The notes begin again of their own accord; holding the shimmering light that he can only associate with her, he plays each note though he is not leading his hands, rather she is.

And then there is silence again.

And he knows that he is finished.

He is lost for a moment as the last note hovers and fades, he drops the lid to the piano with a click, and for once he does not feel cut off, or undone, like there is anymore to be said, he is filled with a new sense of uncertainty, as now there is nothing more to play.

So he stands, and he walks from the piano that has been his only companion in these years.

And he chases his own sunlight towards a small house, finding the warmth and the life of the bright sun sleeping, and he hears each single breath a melody with his own, her heartbeat a singular sonata that she has perfected herself.

When the true sun arises - cold and faded in comparison - he leaves, watching her turn and the smallest beam of contained sun lands over her sleeping form, he goes home, though he revels in the crimson sunrise before it is over taken by clouds and rain.

He is sad, longing, for a moment, until he realises that it remains still; maybe hidden, but just as warm, just as bright.

Although he would care little if it never returned.

For he has found his own sun now; and this one offers far more sustenance.

He strokes the keys that hold the pale glow of the moon and his flesh the same, and he begins again, the old song finally finished and done with after all these years, and this is so much better from the very first key.

It is his song and hers: the keys of a piano trickle either side of her precious heart beat that he knows well now, he knows the heart will not be as eternal as the song, but he is certain that when it does cease the piano will finally be able to rest, gather dust, and creep into silence, having at least known the pairing's unwritten lullaby.

It took a while; far too long to realise. But it hits him with the force of a train or a boulder or a lightning strike.

_He loves her. _

And things make more sense after that.

And the sonata suddenly has another form of accompaniment.

Because sometimes a piano isn't enough.

And she appears and she brings the tune of her tone, the melody of laughter, the beat of a heart and the resounding music that resonates through Edward's ears whenever he sees her, or hears her, or scents her in the air, the music he hears when he simply thinks her name…

_Bella… _


	4. Chapter Four: Before He Can Face Her

He is torn greatly by decisions.

His latest series of choices has - of course, more or less destroyed half a dozen lives, as well as decimated his own demonstrably.

But his next one could destruct his resolve or destroy his sanity.

He sits at the piano that still smells faintly of blood and cake, it is silent and closed as he cannot bare to even see the gleaming white keys, all around him his family try to move him, speak to him, sway him, insult him, whatever they are doing he doesn't care either way.

But they are trying to leave and fulfil his wishes and will not without him, he shuts his eyes as he lifts the lid, feeling foolish and childish but not caring much either way.

He presses a key down - the first key to begin _her_ melody.

_Her_ lullaby.

Will she remember thier song in ten years time? When the rain howls (not that he expects her to stay in the cold much longer. Maybe with him gone she'll go to Jacksonville like she was meant to all along. His heart twists in agony as he pictures her, warm in the sun, a thousand miles from where he can ever be), Ok, he amends his treacherous thoughts, when she cannot sleep for worrying (He doesn't ever want her to worry) about school or work or human boys (he curls his hand into a fist) or children (he is incoherently jealous of whoever gives her _that_ gift) or human friends.

and she tosses and turns, her hair splayed across her pillow, kept up at night for whatever reason that is inherently human and normal and never life threatening.

...

Will she recall the notes that rang alongside her life?

The notes that he will always associate with humanity, but forefront in his mind: love and life alike now.

Will she ever think about the boy that screwed her life in his overly strong hands and amended it with soft words and lullabies?

He slams the lid shut again, shattering it in a rain of splinters and flees the large white house.

Too afraid of his flimsy convictions to stay any longer.

He runs away, far away.

The forest, alive with sounds, holds no piano keys.

And so there is one less thing to threaten his resolve, but still a thousand others.


	5. Chapter Five: Before He Runs Back To Her

Silence is sometimes sweet.

Sometimes lingering; the pause between words,

The silence between breaths,

the cloying note of a lasting song.

It can bring anticipation for all things new forwards; give your mind the time to process the old 'I love you's' and the 'Goodbyes',

the yes's and no's,

It can be a gift,

Sometimes.

But he finds no safety, nor reassurance, in silence.

Silence is agony to his ears.

He listens for her heart, her voice, her laugh, the rush of her blood,

And when he is met with silence he has to remember.

He debates filling the silence with atrocious noise that may as well deafen him, screaming metal and blaring rap, he cannot fill it with his beloved musical tastes, as they hold the kind silences that he is used to filling with thoughts. He wants to hear the null inner voices and outer, and he even tried it for a time, preying that endless, pointless and inane human drivel may drown his own thoughts and fill his poor head to the brim.

But when he does the boy feels a little worse, the deafening happiness and sadness and depression and joy, the pointless tears, the merited fears, and the tiny acts of adoration.

A kiss on the cheek for an wrinkled woman that leaves a puckering pop, that should blow his eardrums to an oblivion.

A handshake of an old friend, the flesh on flesh, they crush his heart.

And then there is the music.

He is half ashamed at how little he appreciated music before it became a plague.

The singsong voices of calling children, the humming of tunes along the streets.

Music entraps him now, not holding the release and freedom he once depended on.

So silence is all he can have, even when it kills him.

A hard thing to do, with his ears, but he stops, stops listening, stops thinking, stops breathing and living and moving, angry for bird song and rustling leaves and dust motes that graze past each other.

Music is poison.

Silence is poison.

But there is no in-between.

So he must suffer with both.


End file.
